Love and Shame: Transcultural Communication and Its Failure in Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

This essay traces the transformation of Z in Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers from a naïve Chinese peasant girl with blind faith in love to a cosmopolitan subject disillusioned with love. Her disillusionment results from her transnational relationship and her failed effort in transcultural communication during her stay in London for a year. Driven by her desire for complete understanding of her lover, she puts all her efforts into learning English; ironically, as her English improves, their relationship deteriorates. This essay illuminates the reasons for the failed communication from two different but related perspectives. The first part of the essay, informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on language and culture, locates the reason in Z’s incapability to act as an effective minister of her culture and her lover’s unwillingness to accept the arbitrariness of his culture and break out of its habitus. The second part of the essay, based on Silvan Tomkins’s theory of emotions, attempts to demonstrate how intimate feelings such as love and shame operate between the two lovers and how shame interrupts Z from communicating with her lover but also contributes to her newly acquired identity as Chinese in the global context

Stateless within the States: American Homeland Security after 9/11 and Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend

This essay attempts to place I Am Legend (2007) in the context of American nationalism and aggressive enforcement of the immigration laws after 9/11. The apocalyptic world of I Am Legend reflects the post-9/11 American society that is driven by the urge to make America “one nation” and haunted by the fear of people who might harm the “unity.” The film tries to draw a clear boundary between “us” and “them” by completely othering the infected, but in the context of American homeland security after 9/11, it becomes a complex issue to decide where to draw the line. The shifty boundary between “us” and “them” reflects the post-9/11 American dilemma: the United States has to close its border while maintaining its identity as a nation of immigrants. This essay also discusses how geographical markers, instead of racial markers, are utilized to symbolize the infected as the stateless people within the United States

A preliminary study on the neurocognitive deficits associated with loneliness in young adults

The experience of loneliness is universal and may have an adverse effect on neurocognitive functioning even at a younger age. Using a comprehensive neurocognitive functioning test (NCFT) battery, we examined the possible negative effects of loneliness on neurocognitive functioning in young adults. The high-loneliness and low-loneliness groups were screened using the UCLA Loneliness Scale v. 3, and measures pertaining to the domains of intelligence, attention, memory, executive function, and psychomotor functioning were tested and compared. As depression and anxiety were significantly higher in the high-loneliness group, an analysis of covariance was conducted. As a result, the high-loneliness group showed significantly poor performance on measures of executive function and attention prior to controlling for depression and anxiety, and executive function retained its significance even after controlling for these variables. Additional analysis showed that depression and anxiety did not significantly mediate the relationship between loneliness and neurocognitive functioning. Such results suggest that loneliness is likely to negatively affect executive functioning and attention in early adulthood and then progressively spread to other domains of cognitive functioning, as reported in the older adult population. The limitations and implications of the present study were considered and addressed

Educational implications for university education through analysing learning outcomes, teaching-learning strategy and assessment strategy of universities of the United Kingdom- courses/programs related to life science

The purpose of this study is to analyse the specifications in the course/module descriptions in the field of biological science in UK universities and to examine its implications for the innovation of higher education. For supporting data, learning outcomes, teaching & learning strategies and assessment strategies in the course/module descriptions were closely analysed. In many UK universities, learning outcomes were presented according to four com-ponents of knowledge and understanding, cognitive (in-tellectual) skills, practical skills and transferable/key skills.In this research, total twelve teaching & learning strategies and thirteen assessment strategies were examined in the course/module descriptions related to life science of UK universities with TEF Gold. The mean number of teaching & learning strategies was 7.9. and as for the assessment strategies was 7.7. The results showed that UK universities use various teaching & learning and assessment strategies. Moreover, learning outcomes, teaching & learning and assess-ment strategies are consistently structured in the course/ programs in the field of biological sciences.The develop-ment of consistent and detailed specifications in the course/module descriptions such as learning outcomes, tea-ching & learning and assessment strategies would con-tribute to innovative higher education

Surface composition and structure of Co\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e(110) and the effect of impurity segregation

The Co3O4 (110) single crystal surface has been characterized by low energy electron diffraction (LEED), Auger electron spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). LEED analysis of the clean Co3O4 (110) spinel surface shows a well-ordered pattern with sharp diffraction features. The XPS spectra are consistent with stoichiometric Co3O4 as determined by the concentration ratio of oxygen to cobalt (CO /CCo) and spectral peak shape. In particular, the cobalt 2p XPS spectra are characteristic of the spinel structure with Co3+ occupying octahedral sites and Co2+ in tetrahedral sites within the lattice. During prolonged heating at 630 K, bulk impurities of K, Ca, Na, and Cu segregated to the surface. Sodium desorbed from the surface as NaOH at 825 K, potassium and calcium were only removed by sputtering since no desorption from the surface was detected for temperatures up to 1000 K. Copper also disappeared upon heating above 700 K, most likely by desorbing although the possibility of diffusion back into the bulk could not be eliminated. The appearance of copper impurities correlated with Co3O4 (110) surface reduction to CoO, and the surface could not be fully reoxidized even upon extended oxygen annealing as long as the copper impurity remained on the surface. Upon removal of the Cu from the near-surface region, the surface was easily reoxidized to Co3O4 by O2

Gateway RFP-fusion vectors for high-throughput functional analysis of genes

There is an increasing demand for high throughput (HTP) methods for gene analysis on a genome-wide scale. However, the current repertoire of HTP detection methodologies allows only a limited range of cellular phenotypes to be studied. We have constructed two HTP-optimized expression vectors generated from the red fluorescent reporter protein (RFP) gene. These vectors produce RFP-tagged target proteins in a multiple expression system using gateway cloning technology (GCT). The RFP tag was fused with the cloned genes, thereby allowing us localize the expressed proteins in mammalian cells. The effectiveness of the vectors was evaluated using an HTP-screening system. Sixty representative human C2 domains were tagged with RFP and overexpressed in HiB5 neuronal progenitor cells, and we studied in detail two C2 domains that promoted the neuronal differentiation of HiB5 cells. Our results show that the two vectors developed in this study are useful for functional gene analysis using an HTP-screening system on a genome-wide scale.We appreciate the helpful advice of Dr. Tobias Meyer and Dr. Won Do Heo of Stanford University in the construction of the set of entry clones of human C2 domains. This work was supported by a grant from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (R01-2002- 000-00128-0), and a Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF- 2006-005-J04204)

A participatory approach to iteratively adapting game design workshops to empower autistic youth

IntroductionAutistic people face systemic barriers to fair employment. Informal learning may promote the self-determination transition-age autistic youth need to overcome and/or transform these barriers. This report focuses on the iterative process of developing video game design workshops guided by feedback from autistic students about instructional strategies they found engaging. This study is part of a three-year-long NSF-funded program of research that seeks to empower autistic youth to move toward successful careers by teaching educators how to more effectively guide them.MethodsIn the Summer of 2021, educators at an award-winning NYC-based, not-for-profit, education program, Tech Kids Unlimited (TKU) collaborated with researchers, including autistic students, to iteratively develop and assess two online game design workshops for transition-age autistic youth. Participants selected which workshop they were available for (Workshop 1: n = 18; M age = 16.72  years; Workshop 2: n = 16; M age = 16.56  years). Students in Workshop 2  had more varied support needs and were less motivated to learn video game design than students in Workshop 1. Students completed assessments before and after each workshop and rated their interest in specific workshop activities after each activity. Guided by data from Workshop 1, we revised instructional strategies before conducting Workshop 2.ResultsWe found little evidence for our hypothesis that attentional style would impact educational engagement. However, video game design self-efficacy and self-determination were often positively associated with engagement. Two industry speakers, one of whom was autistic, were among the highest-rated activities. As hypothesized, video game design self-efficacy and self-determination (and unexpectedly) spatial planning improved from pre- to post-test following Workshop 1. Despite our efforts to use what we learned in Workshop 1 to improve in Workshop 2, Workshop 2 did not lead to significant improvements in outcomes. However, students highlighted instructional strategies as a strength of Workshop 2 more often than they had for Workshop 1. Educators highlighted the importance of group “temperature checks,” individualized check-ins, social–emotional support for students and educators, and fostering a positive atmosphere.DiscussionFindings suggest that interactive multimodal activities, stimulating discussions, and opportunities to engage with neurodivergent industry professionals may engage and empower diverse autistic youth